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Prom  74, Pintscher and Mahler: Marisol Montalvo (soprano), Orchestre de Paris, Christoph Eschenbach   (conductor), Royal Albert Hall, London,  11. 9.2008 (AO)


Matthias Pintscher was born only in 1971 but his music has already made waves. Boulez conducted his Osiris this May in London, which I loved and Boulez doesn't conduct things that aren't worth doing. Hérodiade Fragmente was premiered by Abbado in Berlin in 1999 with Christine Schafer : definitely not minor league performers! Of all the "new" music in this year's Prom season this was easily the most intriguing - listen to the re-broadcast.

The text is to Mallarmé's epic poem, a fin de siècle drama of sexual repression and undefinable longings. "J'attends un chose inconnue" sings the soprano. Pintscher leaves the line unadorned, the voice alone and unsupported. It's the still, silent heart of the piece. Read the whole poem to get the full context. Hérodiade is a girl surrounded by sensual excess, which fascinates and repels her. Pintscher focuses solely on her dialogue with the mirror, intensifying the surreal mood. The vocal line is sensual, lovely sighing vowels, but emotions are cut off in sudden cries, their import too much for the girl to handle. But the mirror doesn't shirk. Pintscher's orchestral writing is superb. The mirror takes on a powerful life of its own, commenting and reflecting what words can't express. The strings shimmer, dense and opaque, a smooth hard surface that reflects without relenting. It seems still, and calm. But then the music shatters into jagged, angular staccato: glass is fragile, it can break into lethal shards. Pintscher also writes eerie circular figures, like the sounds of wet fingers rubbing on glass, reminding us how young and childlike the girl is. Eschenbach gets wonderfully quiet playing from the Orchestre de Paris - long, barely audible humming, even from the brass, which is quite a feat. This captures the suppressed emotion in the poem, feelings so painful they can only be whispered at. It's beautiful, yet sinister. As the girl's "froides pierreries" drop away in "les sanglots supremes et meurtris", the music explodes in wounded sobs, the percussion ringing bells that could either be celebration or calls of alarm.  Mallarmé knew he was entering dangerous new territory with this poem. He needed symbols that were oblique, to "paint , not the thing itself but the effect it produces". So Pintscher's music profoundly reflects the spirit of the poem - like a mirror, quiet but unflinching.

Surperlative, clear playing from the Orchestre de Paris, no clouding in this mirror: this is a seriously underrated orchestra.  Marisol Montalvo’s voice is  ideally suited to fragile young heroines like Hérodiade, but not to the stadium acoustic of the Royal Albert Hall, so live much of her singing didn’t come across. On the rebroadcast, the balance was corrected so she comes over much better.

Two days previously, Bernard Haitink’s Mahler 6^th with the Chicago Symphony had drawn a capacity crowd. In contrast, this Prom was woefully under attended. Yet it was by far the superior performance, appealing not to celebrity followers but to those interested in the composer. Mahler’s 1^st Symphony may be familiar but it reveals a great deal about how well a conductor really understands the composer. Eschenbach hears it in the context of Mahler’s entire output, from the very early songs through to the late symphonies. This is perceptive, for some have even suggested that Mahler’s whole oeuvre is one symphony in different stages.  This presumes much more sensitivity from listeners than the current fashion for Mahler loud and bombastic.  But a conductor with integrity goes for musical insight, not short term popularity. This performance was rewarding because it shed light on where Mahler was coming from and where he was heading.

The songs of Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen weave through the symphony for a reason, not merely for decoration. While there’s no need to remember the words exactly, it’s important to remember their spirit – youth, nature, disappointment and ultimately resolution – themes that recur repeatedly throughout Mahler’s work.  Mahler specified that the trumpets in the introduction should be from a distance which is significant. The songs and marches in this symphony aren’t happening in real time but are filtered through memory, heard from afar, carrying connotations that go far beyond literal representation. Thus Eschenbach doesn’t do the matches with brass band brutality. These aren’t “military” marches but memories of marches Mahler heard in childhood, symbolizing many things, like innocence, nostalgia, loss. Hence the link to the Brüder Martin melody.  Eschenbach eschews the temptation to play them up for impact but makes a more subtle connection to the world of Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Thus the menacing storm of the final movement isn’t just an episode, but a kind of psychological working through, as being a teenager prepares a person for adulthood.  Mahler’s protagonist is moving on, heading out into the world. 

Of all Mahler’s symphonies, the first is perhaps the only one that can survive an arrogant, noisy interpretation, because adolescence involves being full of oneself!  But Eschenbach showed clearly how the symphony is far from one-dimensional.

Anne Ozorio

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